Sherrington: Johnny Manziel makes Heisman history, but here's the real question: Can he do it again?

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NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 08: Heisman finalists quarterback Johnny Manziel of the Texas A&M University Aggies speaks to the media after a press conference prior to the 78th Heisman Trophy Presentation at the Marriott Marquis on December 8, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

Louis DeLuca - Staff Photographer

Texas A&M students Kyle Jackson, Erin Evetts, Sam Specchio and Kayla Mauch react to the announcement of Johnny Manziel winning the Heisman Trophy, during the watch party held at the Association of Former Students building on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station on Saturday, December 8, 2012. (Louis DeLuca/The Dallas Morning News)

Johnny Manziel made history Saturday, becoming the first freshman in the Heisman Trophy’s 77 years with the audacity to walk off with the prize. Actually, he ran away with it. Perfect. There’s simply no catching Johnny Football.

Voters didn’t need two or three years to get the idea. Johnathan Paul Manziel made a compelling case from the get-go.

We learned the teen-age quarterback could hold his own in his Texas A&M debut, against a seriously-underrated Florida team. We learned that college players get just as dizzy chasing him as the kids back at Kerrville Tivy. We learned he could bounce back from a bad game against LSU. We learned he could make Aggie history in Tuscaloosa. We learned the best nickname since Coke.

We learned it was a mistake to tap the brakes on the hype, even if it was with the best intentions.

We learned he could talk.

Frankly, what more did any conscientious voter need to know, other than this:

Can he do it again?

Once a barrier has been broken with the Heisman, voters don’t look back. They crowned 26 winners before the first black recipient, Syracuse’s Ernie Davis, which is bad enough, if not downright racist, until you consider it was another year before they recognized football west of Fort Worth. Neither oversight has been an issue since.

Age has been a hang-up with voters occasionally, at least in theory. Still, only three years after Army’s Doc Blanchard became the first junior to win, Doak Walker was the second. Once Tim Tebow broke the unofficial ban on sophomores in ’07, two more, Sam Bradford and Mark Ingram, followed in quick succession. In fact, the last senior to win the Heisman was Ohio State’s Troy Smith, in 2006. A senior winning the statue is about as rare these days as a senior lottery pick.

But if a prejudice still exists in college football, one Manziel should beware, it’s the bugaboo of the repeat Heisman winner.

Only one man -- Ohio State’s Archie Griffin -- has bookend Heismans.

The closest any player has come before or since Griffin’s 1974-75 coup was 1979, when the Sooners’ Billy Sims followed his Heisman season with a runner-up finish to USC’s Charles White. Even then, it wasn’t a contest. White received more than twice as many votes.

Underclassmen winners in the years immediately following Sims didn’t stick around for an encore, if they could help it. Of the next nine juniors to win, six turned pro. BYU’s Ty Detmer, Oklahoma’s Jason White and Matt Leinart of USC all finished third their senior seasons.

Of the sophomore winners, Tebow never finished better than third again. Bradford managed to remain just healthy enough at Oklahoma to get drafted. Ingram wasn’t even the best running back on Alabama’s roster his junior year.

Cam Newton turned pro after he won as a junior, as did Robert Griffin III, which brings us to Manziel.

The problem he’ll no doubt face from here on out is at least partly what won him the trophy in the first place. “Johnny Football” fatigue could set in. Regional bias may prove a factor, too. All the East and West and Midwest voters who made him No. 1 this year will figure Manziel got his. Time a local boy does, too.

Voters could reasonably justify their case against Tebow, whose junior and senior statistics didn’t match his magnificent sophomore season at Florida. Leinart’s senior stats were in some ways superior to his Heisman year, but he got caught in the middle of the national argument between Reggie Bush and Vince Young.

Even if he surpasses his spectacular SEC-record freshman season, Manziel could face a similar problem. What fresh new talent awaits in our attention-deficit world?

Or what if A&M isn’t as good if it loses players such as Luke Joeckel, the Outland winner? What if Manziel gets hurt? What if his head gets too big for his helmet?

What we know almost for certain is that Manziel won’t be turning pro anytime soon. Not at his size. The 6-1 on his bio is a polite exaggeration, which he in essence conceded when finally allowed to speak. The first thing opposing players usually tell him between gasps, he said, is that he’s smaller than they figured.

And the NFL, as we know, likes its quarterbacks XXL. Russell Wilson and Drew Brees are the only current starters who could fit in Manziel’s uniform. They’ve yet to be considered anything but aberrations.

What it means is that Manziel will have two more years, maybe even three, to accomplish what only one man has done before. It’ll be hard, if not impossible. But, given Manziel’s make-up and what Kevin Sumlin already has going at A&M, I’m reluctant to bet against him.

Of course, if winning only one Heisman is all he ever does, well, there are worse obituaries. On the other hand, who knows how it might empower him? A freshman winning sports’ greatest individual award? Next thing you know, the kid will want to vote.